In the Garden of Iden (Company)

by Kage Baker

  “No. But I know enough to discern that a white marigold is a marvel, whereas a unicorn is a lie.”

  “What is this unicorn? I have heard it spoken of three times now. I would pay money myself to see it.”

  He smiled contemptuously, but on him it looked good, and at least the contempt wasn’t directed at me now. “Why, you may see it for yourself.” He extended his right hand and took mine. “Come, Lady, and do not fear. He is a tame beast.”

  Only slowly I let go of his hand. We walked on through that garden, past banks of flowers lifting their unbelieving heads to the sun, past beds laid out in patterns intricate as Morisco tiles. Down a lane between clipped privet hedges we caught a glimpse of little white flanks. Nicholas flung out his arms and announced: “The unicorn of Hind!”

  The tail end backed out of the marjoram knot the animal was destroying, and a little head appeared, to look at us inquiringly.

  “Ay!” I exclaimed, and bent down to stare. It thought I had a treat for it and came trotting up to see.

  “Don’t tremble, Lady. It will do you no harm,” said Nicholas with a straight face.

  “He’s a goat.” I examined him. He was as white as milk, his tiny hooves had been gilded, and some cruel surgery had been done to his horn buds before they had sprouted, and some crueler binding had fused them into one stubby twisting spike. But he was a sweet and trusting little goat all the same.

  “A goat!” Nicholas held up his hands. “Can this be true?”

  “Señor.” I looked up at him. “I was born in Spain. I know a goat when I see one.”

  He just folded his hands.

  “Go, goat.” I swatted the unicorn’s flank, and he ran off to do further damage to the herbs. “And yet, strange to tell, there is such a thing as a unicorn.”

  “Surely not!”

  “Truly, but it looks nothing like this. A big creature, rude and ugly. It is called in the Greek, rhinoceros.”

  He nodded, sounding it out. “Unfortunate. Sir Walter would not be pleased to discover that he paid twenty pounds eightpence for a goat.”

  “Why tell him? The worthy Erasmus says, in his Praise of Folly, that no man is so happy as he who lives under an illusion.”

  “Very true.” Nicholas’s eyes lit up. “You have read Erasmus? What do you think of his Ichtuophagia?”

  Thank God, thank God I’d accessed that Strongly Suggested column. “I think it is outrageous. All the same, I agree with what he says,” I replied with perfect composure.

  “So you admit that it is unnecessary to salvation to eat fish on fast days?”

  “Oh, señor, really, what nonsense.”

  “Even if the Pope commands it?” he pressed.

  “Particularly so. Do you imagine God cares what we have for dinner? How can one worship when religion is so ridiculous?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, then paused. “You have no faith, then,” he said after a moment. There was a silence while we considered each other. “I have an excellent book I would like you to read,” he said at last.

  “Ah! He is going to convert me to the Church of England!” I exclaimed.

  But that darkened his mood. He took a step closer and loomed over me.

  “The Church of England?” he growled. “The one whose leaders even now recant like the hypocrites they are?”

  He must have been close to seven feet tall with his biretta on.

  “The crawling Council have sold this land to Spain, for the right to keep their miserable lives. Our Northumberland—you know who he was?”

  “The Protestant faction leader,” I stammered. “He made Lady Jane Grey queen.”

  “Poor maid. Yes, he did. And when he fell, he turned ranting Catholic at once, in the hope it would save his head. She died with more bravery. What man was that to lead us? But the ones who remain at Court have been more subtle in changing their coats. They remain on the Council, they conform. By the collusion of the men who should most defend them, the laws of our late king are set aside. How should I counsel you to join the Church of England, Lady, when it is made up of such rogues?”

  “What has become of all those Bible-reading heretics we hear so much of in Spain?” I asked, startled by his vehemence. “All those learned merchants disputing doctrines?”

  “Fled to live among the Germans,” he said bitterly, “for safety. Yet had they had the courage to stay here and fight for the Faith, we would all be safe enough.” Except for the ones who died fighting for your faith, I thought.

  “All the same, I would be interested in reading this book of yours,” I said at last. “Even if there is no true faith in England.”

  He took hold of my arm. He was very physical for such a godly man.

  “Lady, the Faith is here,” he stated. “But we must build churches in our hearts, for surely those built in the world have all betrayed us.”

  Now this was such a remarkable observation—for a sixteenth-century man mired in the perceptions and prejudices of mortals, I mean—that I was really impressed.

  “Worldly institutions fail because they require power and gold to operate,” I explained, graciously, I felt. “Power and gold attract wicked and greedy people. Wicked and greedy people are corrupters and betrayers. Therefore, worldly institutions become corrupt and betrayed. Churches, being in the world, are worldly institutions. Thus it is demonstrated.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Very good. And very true, for all that you rattled it off like a parrot.”

  Parrot! I tried to flounce away, but he still had hold of my arm. “And where have you ever seen a parrot, I’d like to know?” I said scornfully.

  “We have several in the aviary. Yes, he collects birds, too. Come, tell me, where did you learn such a nice little piece of sophistry? Never in Spain.”

  Sophistry! “We have not always lived in Spain,” I extemporized. “We fled to France for a while. After my father got out of the dungeons of the Inquisition.”

  “How old were you at that time?”

  “Four. It was not either a sophistry! If philosophers had ever thought about this for two minutes, humanity would stop building stupid worldly institutions like churches.”

  “Not necessarily. Anyone can see the disease, but what is the remedy? Tell me, doctor’s child. Demonstrate for me the solution to the problem you have propounded.” His eyes were blazing, intense, interested in me.

  “You are asking me for a solution for human evil? Don’t give your heart to any church, any leader, any idea. Collect rare plants like Sir Walter, or study them like me, but leave the damned world and its struggles alone.”

  “No! A hermit may do as much, or an animal, and never lessen human misery one particle. One must work for a better world.” He had me by both arms now. “Listen to me. Shall we not struggle over ages to burn away what is evil in ourselves, until at some far day the angel with the flaming sword will relent and grant that we reenter Paradise?”

  I hung there, gazing into his face, which shone with a radiance of belief so glorious, I didn’t think to point out to him that his own Bible specifically says people are going to get worse, not better, until his God finally ends the whole mess in a shower of blood and flames.

  No, all I could feel was admiration. Somehow he had figured out the truth. For what he spoke of really would happen, of course: except for the part about the angel. The human race, sick of its own mortality, was going to develop the technology to produce Us. And We, obviously, were the next step, We were the perfected ones, the immortal and infinitely wise and intelligent beings he believed men would become.

  I did not heed his racing pulse, nor mine. I loved the sound of his beating heart.

  “Now, truly I think you could move mountains with your speech,” I gasped. “You almost do persuade me to such a faith as yours.”

  His eyes held mine.

  “I will persuade you,” he said. I ought to have heard warning sirens then, my heart ought to have run for a shelter.

  But he was warm and
solid as palpable sunlight, and I thought hazily: He wants to save my soul. How quixotic, how extravagant, how romantic.

  He smoothed my coif. “Forgive me,” he said. “I am too forward with my hands, when once I begin to speak.”

  “No, no.” I blinked and shook my head.

  “I have been beaten for it ere now, and belike shall hang for it yet. Come, art thou well?” He lifted my chin in his hand and looked down into my eyes.

  “Yes! Yes! Very well!”

  “Come, Lady Rose. Let us go about our tasks as we were bid. Now I will show you a cabbage said to be like none other in the world.”

  It turned out to be nothing more than a bok choy plant, though how it had got there was anybody’s guess. But there were real strawberries, growing from jars set cunningly in a wall; Nicholas could only find four ripe ones, but he picked them for me. And he dutifully pulled down a branch of Eucalyptus cordata that I could not reach, and he waited with patience while I took careful samples of what must have looked to him like the dullest of weeds. He led me to the aviary and, yes, by golly, there were parrots there: several African grays, half a dozen assorted Amazons, and even a big blue-and-gold macaw ceaselessly chewing its way up and down a bar. It cocked an eye at me.

  “Buenos días,” it said.

  “Buenos días,” I replied.

  “Why, here at last is one who will welcome a Spanish lady to England,” jeered Nicholas pleasantly, just before the macaw said something so pungent, explicit, and imaginative that I blinked. Nicholas’s face went red. Evidently his Spanish too was pretty good.

  “You must have had him from a sailor, yes?” I guessed.

  Nicholas, recovering himself, looked at me a long moment; then we began to laugh. He had a nice laugh. I hadn’t thought godly people laughed.

  So we were good friends, you see, by the time we came wandering back to the house that afternoon. But when we entered the great hall to find Joseph sitting placidly at the head of the long table, Nicholas stiffened. The mood dropped away, like a curtain falling, or a fine frost.

  “Buenos días, daughter, young man.” Joseph looked up from his book. He had a glass of perry and a dish of wafers at his elbow. The fire, all cheerful, set lights dancing in the wine.

  “Good day, sir. Where is my master? This is his accustomed place at this hour of the day,” said Nicholas.

  “I administered him a purge.” Joseph smiled at him. “He is in his private chamber. You may seek him there.” I wished he wasn’t looking so damned comfortable, after I’d gone to such trouble to depict him as a tormented scholar.

  Nicholas turned to me, bowed slightly, and withdrew. I heard his footsteps receding into the depths of the house.

  “Wafer?” offered Joseph. “Well. Did my weary eyes deceive me, or were you two young things smiling at each other as you came in?”

  “I could punch you sometimes.” I slammed my basket down on the table.

  “You could try,” he informed me mildly. “I’d duck. So, did you have a nice day?”

  “Actually, yes.” I sat down across from him. “I got some beautiful examples of the ilex and an obscure periwinkle and a white calendula, can you imagine?”

  “Remarkable.” Joseph turned a page. “Striking fellow, your Master Harpole. Big. Seems to share some of your interests, too.”

  “Don’t beat it to death. He is nice. Okay? How did your day go with Sir Walter? He’s really a mess, isn’t he?”

  Joseph nodded. “Comparatively. He’s made of stern stuff, or he wouldn’t have survived this long. I did a little tinkering. Can’t take things too far too soon, but the old man will certainly get his new lease on life. Ha ha. It’s the young man I’m worried about.”

  “Haven’t you got a one-track mind!” I rose to make an affronted exit.

  “Now, now. Just my little way of looking after our best interests. By the way, I’ve left a list of the drugs I need synthesized on your credenza console. It’s two pages long, so you might want to get an early start on it.”

  I made my affronted exit anyway.

  Sir Walter reappeared at supper looking pale and shaky, and took only some toast and a cup of watered Rhenish; but Joseph told a series of anecdotes concerning the king of France and a Spanish mule driver. Joseph was so adept at telling a funny story that Sir Walter was red with laughter soon, making high shrill barks of mirth like a terrier, with his mustache points spiking the air. Even the servants were giggling.

  Nicholas came to supper with us for the first time, very reserved and correctly courteous. He smiled at the anecdotes, though everyone else at table was crying from laughing so hard. But when I struggled to shell a handful of filberts, he leaned over and took them in his fist and cracked them, so, and cast them on the table between us where they rolled like dice. I looked up into his eyes. Was it quite right for a godly man to show off his strength like that? But then, there’d been no reason for me to act helpless with the nuts, since I could crush them to powder if I had to.

  “…so the mule driver saith, ‘But, Your Majesty, that was why I married her!’” finished Joseph. Sir Walter beat his hand on the table and whooped his appreciation. Joseph leaned back in his chair, beaming, watching us.

  “Nefer?” I turned the Rami lens slowly, fixing on a cell wall.

  “Uhuh.” She did not look up from my magazine.

  “What do you think of Master Harpole?”

  “Who? Oh, the tall guy. Gee, wasn’t Joseph being a stinker about that this morning? Sending you off into the garden alone with him like that. Especially with you so nervous around mortals.”

  “Well, it went okay. Really. In fact, he’s not so bad at all, for what he is. Have you scanned him?”

  “Not closely.” Her attention was drifting back to the magazine.

  “He’s so … healthy. And perfect. He’s a lot like one of us.”

  “Head’s the wrong shape.” Some article was deeply interesting her. I cranked back the slide and processed it for transmission.

  “Do you remember what you told me about having recreational sex with mortals?”

  “Hm?” she said, and then played it back and lifted her head to stare at me. “Oops. No, I never said any such thing. Whatever it was you think I said. Listen, don’t let Joseph pressure you into doing anything you really don’t want to do. It’s perfectly understandable if the idea of, uh, you know, makes you sick. I may have said something kind of dumb about acquired tastes, but if I did, it was only to show you how comfortable some of us can feel around mortals. Okay?”

  “Well, okay, do you think you’d feel comfortable around a mortal like Nicholas Harpole?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I guess so. He looks clean.”

  “He’s intelligent. I never met a mortal with a real working brain before.”

  “Big surprise, isn’t it?” She focused in on the magazine. “Well, congratulations. At the rate you’re going, you’ll have that AAE off your file in no time.”

  “How did you know I had an AAE?” I was stung. “Those things are supposed to be confidential!”

  She just looked at me bleakly. “Sorry,” she said. “They’re not. Another big surprise.”

  “Boy!” I flung another slide into the credenza, so hard it beeped in protest. Nefer sighed.

  “You work for the Company, Mendoza. This is what it’s like.”

  “I saw a unicorn today,” I told her maliciously.

  “Sir Walter has a rhinoceros out there, huh?” She lost herself in the magazine again. “Wow. They’re releasing the complete series of Jason Barrymore films on ring holo next month.”

  So who cared.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I KNOW NOTHING OF your life, Master Harpole, do you know that?” I said coquettishly. It was difficult to be a coquette while trying to keep artichoke leaves out of one’s mouth. We were busy wrestling a very determined taproot up out of the mud.

  “Hm?” he said, and then “Ha!” as the nasty thing sagged over, defeated in the grass. I
bent to cut the parts I needed for processing.

  “Your artichoke is not your phoenix among herbs,” panted Nicholas, wiping his hands.

  “Pardon?”

  “This is not a rare plant, you know,” he pointed out, switching to Latin.

  “No, not rare, but very good for gross humors of the blood.” I sliced off spines. “Or so my father says. Sir Walter is troubled with them, I am told.”

  “And is your father troubled with them also?”

  “Sometimes.” I squinted up at him. “There, behold. I have told you more, and you have told me nothing. You have drawn volumes of information out of me. You’d make a good spy.” Coquettishness in Latin. I felt pretty proud of myself. He gave me a look.

  “Why, Lady, for all I know some friar is hiding close by, writing down every word we say.”

  “He’d be more likely to be spying on me than on you, I fear. But, since I am a woman and therefore given to curiosity, I must know all about you. Where were you born?”

  “Hampstead.”

  “Where were you educated?”

  “Balliol.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Using my wits to earn my bread.”

  “This rush of personal confidences is making me dizzy,” I told the artichoke. “So you were at Balliol? At Oxford? And you didn’t enter the Church?”

  “No. I lack personal discipline. But a good friend recommended me to Sir Walter, and so I keep his accounts and dine at his table, and no man has cause to complain of me.” He folded his hands in a manner that suggested the story was at an end.

  “Did you get all that, Fray Diego?” I called over the hedge. “Well, you must excuse me. You know how we women are. Once we think something’s hidden to us, we die to discover what it is.”

  “Now you’re quoting from our Chaucer,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

  “Wife of Bath,” I admitted. “But Aristotle too.”

  “Yes.” He watched me, smiling. I folded the parts of the artichoke I needed in a clean napkin and considered the remaining mess. I wondered if I should leave it for the gardener to clean up. Nicholas said, “You surely aren’t saying you accept Aristotle’s views on the female sex.”